Jenny Zhang
BA(Adv) Sc (Hons) (Sydney), PhD (Sydney)
College roles
Fellow (A)
College Lecturer
Director of Studies in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) (Part IB)
Postgraduate Mentor
University roles
Assistant Professor in Materials Chemistry
Biography
Dr Jenny Zhang is a chemist specialising in semi-artificial photosynthesis, bioenergetics and bioelectrochemistry.
Jenny completed her PhD in bioinorganic medicinal chemistry at the University of Sydney, Australia, with a brief stint at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she developed redox active platinum-based anti-cancer agents. She then became a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellow at the University of Cambridge to explore how biocatalysts can be exploited to generate solar fuels in an emerging field known as ‘semi-artificial photosynthesis’. She has since been awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, which she used to start her group in 2018. She is now an Assistant Professor in Material Chemistry at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, and holds the Anne Logue College Lectureship.
Research Interests
Jenny’s research aims to develop novel bio-material hybrid approaches for probing into the bioenergetics of living microorganisms, which could also serve as platforms to launch new biotechnologies to address a range of societal needs (from clean energy generation to addressing antibiotic resistance). Currently, her group is focused on re-wiring photosynthesis for sustainable photo-energy conversion and developing novel electrochemical methods to treat biofouling. Her group works at the intersection of many disciplines, including physics, synthetic biology, chemical biology, engineering and material science; however, at the heart of their work is electrochemistry.